Why Marriage?

34 Pages Posted: 21 Aug 2012

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2001

Abstract

Words are only words. Standing alone, they often are not worth much more than the paper upon which they are written. Marriage itself is a legal relationship reducible to a piece of paper – the marriage license. It is the interpretation and implementation of that legal relationship that really matters.

This paper looks at the meanings, expectations and obligations conferred by a marriage license and argues that the concept of marriage, and the assumptions it carries with it, limit development of family policy and distort our ideology. The availability of marriage precludes consideration of other solutions to social problems.

This paper argues that for all relevant and appropriate societal purposes, marriage is not necessary. The pressing problems today do not revolve around the marriage connection, but the caretaker-dependent relationship. Only when our society recognizes the inevitability of dependency and the society preserving work of caretakers will we have a society in which dependency is fairly and justly managed.

Keywords: dependency, family law, maternalism, paternalism, marriage, care-taker, legal relationship, public, private, gender, feminism, contract

Suggested Citation

Fineman, Martha Albertson, Why Marriage? (2001). Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, Vol. 9, 2001, Emory Public Law Research Paper, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2132266

Martha Albertson Fineman (Contact Author)

Emory University School of Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States
404-712-2421 (Phone)

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